The road into St Andrews was lined by several miles of golf course. That most gentlemanly of sports was born here and they knew how to capitalise on it, with rows of exclusive, five-star hotels providing for loud Americans and camcorder-wielding Japanese. The population of St Andrews was made up of rich golfers, rich housewives and rich English students. It had never been a place for poor people, but since Prince William did his time there at uni, everyone but the idiotic elite had been priced out.
The student union was the only ugly building in town. Surrounded by eight hundred years of crumbling scenic history, the union was a sixties breezeblock of grey concrete slabs and scratchy windows. In the bar, televisions blasted out MTV over the soulless expanse of blond wood and wrought iron. The three pool tables were busy and a handmade sign in a wacky typeface asked that drinks not be placed on the table.
The Ossians were the oldest and poorest people in the place. Girls in rugby tops and boys in baseball caps with jumpers tied around shoulders oozed southern English superiority, their healthy skins and correct posture suggesting better breeding and bigger purses. Scottish students were spottable by their persecuted looks and pasty complexions. Paul had gone off to find the promoter, leaving them with drinks beside the pool tables.
‘I fucking hate students,’ said Connor loud enough for the pool players to hear. They pretended not to.
‘What a surprise, something you hate,’ said Kate. ‘Change the record. Most of our fans are students, so what does that make you?’
‘Just because we’re popular with the cunts, doesn’t mean I have to like them.’
‘In case you’d forgotten, everyone in this band was a student at one time, so it’s hypocritical to turn round and say you hate them. Also, you know we’re staying with Keith tonight – a friend of mine, please try and remember – who happens to still be a part-time student, and who is very kindly letting a bunch of drunken strangers sleep on his floor on a Monday night. So stop with the angling-for-trouble routine. I suppose you won’t be happy until you’ve provoked someone into hitting you in every town we play?’
‘It might improve the face,’ said Connor, wincing as he smiled. ‘Anyway, I’m not trying to provoke anyone. If I was I’d be calling these wankers here a bunch of upper-class English toff fuckwits or something, wouldn’t I?’
The two nearest pool players turned to look at Connor. They were the size and shape of rugby players. The one about to play straightened up.
‘Look, mate,’ he said in a Home Counties accent, ‘we’re just having a quiet game of pool here. Why don’t you leave it?’
Connor put on a mock surprised look, as Kate and Hannah rolled their eyes and Danny started rubbing his forehead.
‘What do you mean, mate?’ said Connor. ‘I was only pointing out – in a private conversation, I might add – what I would be saying if I was looking for trouble. I didn’t expect any nosy cunts to be listening in.’
The pool player sighed, took his shot and missed. His shorter, stockier mate came to the table and missed. Connor downed some more of his drink.
‘Fucking hell, Danny, I reckon we could wipe the floor with these posh bastards. What do you think?’
‘Connor,’ said Danny, as the stockier pool player turned to face them.
Hannah got up and pulled Connor out of his seat by his coat sleeve. ‘I’m not sitting through this crap,’ she said firmly. ‘Come on, arsehole, you’re taking me for a guided tour.’
He wore a surprised look but let himself be led away from the tables, downing the remains of his pint on the way out and chucking the glass nonchalantly on the floor, where it smashed.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Kate to the pool players. ‘He’s my brother and he’s a complete dickhead.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said the first player. ‘Fancy a game of doubles?’
Kate looked at Danny, who shrugged in agreement.
‘Why not?’ she said, taking a cue from the rack. ‘Two shots don’t carry, one shot only on the black, name your black bag and you have to stick to it, yeah? Play for drinks?’
Danny looked at Kate, smiled and picked a cue.
Outside, Hannah was fuming and Connor was laughing. She stared hard at him.
‘At the risk of sounding like your mother, I don’t know whyI fucking bother.’
‘Not sure my mother has your potty mouth.’
‘Of course she does. Is this what it’s going to be like for the next fortnight? You picking fights with strangers, me hauling you away before you get a doing? I should just leave you to get the shit kicked out of you.’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘Christ’s sake, is that all you think of me?’
‘You’re lovely when you’re angry,’ said Connor.
She punched his arm.
‘That’s the most annoying thing anyone can ever say,’ she said. ‘Except maybe “good girl”. I should dump you on the spot.’
‘I promise never to call you a good girl. Anyway, if you dump me, who’ll give you the guided tour of St Andrews?’
A cold wind blew down Market Street as they stood in silence. After a moment Hannah spoke with a surprisingly cheery tone.
‘Let’s have the bloody tour, then.’
They walked to the east end of the street where the cathedral had been decaying since it was built eight centuries before. It was making a decent stab of surviving considering the exposure to the elements, as it clung to the promontory above the town’s harbour where the university elite paraded in ermine every year. The two ends of the cathedral remained standing, slowly crumbling in a swirl of rain and sea spray amid a ramshackle scattering of gravestones, the odd angles and layout of which suggested a recent landslide. To the right, the monolithic St Regulus tower remained intact. Connor and Hannah wandered round the ruins, hunched into the weather like pilgrims grimacing at the wrath of God. The place was deserted except for a single wet figure across the other side of the ruins, examining tombstones studiously in the hardening rain.
‘Is there any point to this?’ said Hannah. ‘Apart from catching pneumonia?’
Connor led her to the entrance of the tower where they sheltered, shaking off the rain. The fake fur collar of Hannah’s charity-shop suede coat had flattened along with her hair. Connor, with his collar up and lighting a fag, looked as if he thought he was James Dean.
‘This is supposedly where some of St Andrew’s remains were kept,’ he said, passing the lit cigarette to Hannah and lighting one for himself. ‘But then they got lost. What is it with Catholics and old bones? You’d think they’d be too busy mounting crusades. That was the Catholics, wasn’t it?’
‘Just cos I teach history doesn’t mean I give a shit about it,’ said Hannah. ‘And anyway, how do you know all this stuff?’
‘Read a book once. Probably one of yours. Want to go up the tower?’
‘Four quid? Na,’ said Hannah. ‘At student-union prices that’s at least two pints. Honey, as tour guides go you’re a pretty shit one. This town got anything going for it apart from a crumbling cathedral and a street full of tea shops and Pringlewear?’
‘Well, we can go and see the university full of twats, or the golf course full of different twats?’
‘Tempting, but why don’t we just head back. This may come as a surprise, but I never really wanted a tour of this shithole anyway, it was just a diversion tactic.’
‘Hey, this is the poshest shithole in the whole of Scotland, you know.’
‘Still a shithole. Come on, let’s get back. The others will have a head start on the bevvy if we’re not careful.’
Connor produced a hip flask. ‘I think you’ll find no one gets a head start on Connor Alexander in the drinking stakes.’
She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him.
‘Oooh, I love it when you talk boozy.’
‘Yeah, yeah. You love the fact I’ve got some single malt in here.’
‘Not at all,’ she said, grabbing the flask. Conno
r wasn’t quick enough and in a moment she had the top off and was glugging from it.
‘Why I oughta…’ said Connor, waving his fist in a cartoon wobble. She handed the flask back and licked her lips.
‘If I didn’t know better, Mr Alexander, I’d say you were trying to get me drunk and have your wicked way with me.’
‘There’s nothing wicked about my ways.’
‘No? Let’s just see how many fights you start on this tour, shall we?’ A pensive look came over Hannah’s face. ‘Seriously, you are going to stay out of trouble, aren’t you? I mean, you say you hate all that self-destructive rock-star crap, but then… you know? I worry.’
She stroked some of the wet hair away from his eyes and looked at him. He seemed a little lost, a look she both hated and found attractive despite herself. She knew he put it on. She knew he manipulated her and everyone else around him all the time, but there was still a little boy in there who needed to be shown the way.
It hadn’t been love at first sight or any of that corny crap. She thought he was cute and funny and probably the least laddish boy she’d ever met. After a stretch of beery, leery Britpop fans traipsing through her teenage years, he was a welcome change and something of a challenge, a whirlwind of nervous energy. The challenge was to step into that storm and not get swept away. She couldn’t work out what made him the way he was. She’d met his parents plenty of times and got on better with them than either he or Kate did. They seemed like average, middle-class, hippy parents, nothing to get angry about. But Connor resented them for reasons she couldn’t fathom. Maybe he just resented them because they were his parents. In comparison she loved her own parents in an uncomplicated way, despite everything that had happened between them. They’d each made sacrifices for her, and she respected and admired them for it. They’d been through a tough time with the divorce, but they’d come out the other side. For Hannah, family meant peace and contentment. But for Connor everything was a fight, everything was a struggle against unseen forces. His flunk out of uni, his aimless jobs, his drinking and drug-taking, the band, the tour, his parents, his friends, his sister and her – he tackled it all like he was defending the keep of his soul against enemy forces. What made him that way? Was he born with the seeds of it already in him, or had the world shaped him? Better not to get into the whole nature versus nurture thing, she thought. Maybe people were just the way they were, and that was that. She wanted to show him there was a different way to live your life, but she wasn’t entirely sure how, so she just tried to look after him. But wasn’t it about time someone looked after her for a change?
She noticed he hadn’t answered her about behaving. He seemed distracted and was looking over her shoulder at something in the distance.
‘That guy’s watching us,’ he said. ‘
What?’
‘That guy, over by the gravestones. He’s pretending to look at the stones, but really he’s watching us.’
Hannah turned to look. A tall, lean figure was walking slowly among the tombstones, stopping to examine each one in turn.
‘Don’t be stupid. He’s just looking for a grave. Why the hell would he be watching us?’
Connor seemed to hesitate. ‘You’re right, why would he?’
‘Maybe he’s a fan of the band, and recognises us.’
There was another pause, Connor keeping his eyes on the stranger in the distance.
‘Yeah, maybe that’s it,’ he said eventually.
She kissed him on his wet forehead.
‘I think you’re smoking too much blow, my little paranoid android,’ she said, turning into the rain and wind. ‘Come on, droopy drawers, time to head back.’
Connor followed her out the graveyard towards the gig, but couldn’t resist looking back over his shoulder at the tall, thin figure in the distance, still standing examining the gravestones a little too closely for his liking.
After a fraught soundcheck with a hapless student sound engineer, plus a hefty kick of whisky and amphetamine, Connor sat down backstage with Danny to be interviewed for a student-run Internet radio show.
The show’s presenter fumbled with a minidisc recorder and mic. Connor was quickly on a rant. Starting with the myth of Ossian, he rattled through the life of St Andrew, the role of pi in the building of the pyramids, the music of Wilco and Sufjan Stevens, the idiocy of Kurt Cobain, the state of the Scottish football team, the Declaration of Arbroath and anything else that sprang to mind. The presenter, struggling to keep up, flashed pleading looks at Danny, who just smiled and supped his pint. Having grown up in a big family with half a dozen brothers and sisters, Danny had learned early on in life to stay out of things, only butting in when he really had something to say. This made him the perfect partner for Connor in interviews, because Connor never let anyone else speak. After half an hour the student switched off the minidisc.
‘Have you got enough?’ said Connor.
‘I think that’ll do,’ mumbled the presenter, looking shell-shocked.
‘Anything else, just grab me.’ Connor was holding the front of the student’s expensive-looking shirt. He seemed intent on not letting go.
‘No, no, I’ll get out your way. Let you get on with the gig. Thanks a lot.’
He extricated himself from Connor’s grip and shot out the door.
‘What’s his problem?’ said Connor. ‘I was just getting going.’
Danny grinned at him. ‘You wee daftie,’ he laughed.
Connor’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Danny.
‘You big shite,’ he said slowly. ‘You’ve started on the pills already?’
Danny snorted a laugh and drank some more of his pint.
‘Bastard!’ Connor’s eyes were wide. ‘Right, I’m having one as well, then. Can’t have you coming up on your own, can we?’
Danny produced an E from his pocket and Connor necked it, washing it down with the end of the whisky from his hip flask.
Kate poked her head round the dressing-room door.
‘You pair. Support band are on. Want to take a look?’
The place was mobbed. Despite being a Monday night most of the three hundred kids in the place were well on their way to paralytic. Gangs of large lads crowded down the front of the stage. Pockets of girls who looked like they’d be more at home at a debutantes’ ball giggled in the seats scattered around the perimeter of what looked like an old gym hall.
Hobbes were a student band and boy did they suck like one, thought Connor, I bet they’re named after the cartoon tiger, how fucking depressing. They were five laddish blokes with rosy cheeks and buttoned-down shirt collars, churning out a vaguely funky derivative blues rock that was totally without soul, style, attitude or originality, yet which still sent their mates and girlfriends into an unaccountable frenzy.
Halfway through the set, just as Connor was getting suicidal, he felt the first eccy rush kick in. He still knew the band were shite, but he wanted to forgive them, take them away somewhere quiet and explain the world of decent music to them.
Hannah was standing next to him.
‘Crap, eh?’ she shouted.
‘They’ll learn.’
She looked at him carefully for a second.
‘What?’ he said, grinning stupidly, his head bobbing slightly in an involuntary response to the bass drum. She smiled through a look of disapproval.
‘I thought we were waiting till after the shows before taking anything?’
‘Is that the royal “we”?’ said Connor. He laughed and kissed her cheek. He felt a surge of love for her, a pain in his chest. He was proud to know someone as beautiful as her. He revelled in the cornball sentiment for a moment, knowing full well it was chemically induced, but justifying it to himself as an enhancement of a feeling he really did have inside him.
Hobbes finished to ecstatic squeals and raucous roars, followed by the usual murmured chatter before the sound engineer stuck on a record.
‘Right,’ said Connor as he strode towards the stage. ‘Let�
��s rock the fuck out of these wankers.’
Their show was blistering and the crowd were completely apathetic. With their mates’ band finished, the booze kicking in and valuable pulling time disappearing fast, most of the students were concentrating on getting their tongues inserted in other people’s throats. In spite of the Ecstasy, Connor was raging. He was drunk enough on whisky, gin and beer to let the anger overcome the chemistry, and he turned sarcastic and offensive between songs.
‘This is for all the yah rugby pricks out there’ and ‘This is for all you pashmina-wearing James Blunt fans’ received rowdy boos and drunken heckles. The Ossians thrived on the bad feeling now emanating from the audience. Danny and Kate pummelled away through the set with conviction, occasionally throwing glances and smiles at each other, while Hannah tore shreds out of her SG, breaking a string at one point but playing on regardless. They ended with ‘Declaration Of Arbroath’, Connor turning his overdrive way up and letting his guitar crunch and feed back the whole way through the song before throwing it against his amp in disgust.
‘There’s another rock ’n’ roll cliché for you, kids.’ He stumbled over a guitar pedal, picked up an empty bottle of Beck’s and lobbed it into the crowd. ‘We’ve been The Ossians, you’ve been a bunch of posh English cunts, cheers.’
When he got backstage Connor saw Kate greeting a large, fresh-faced blond guy with a rugged chin and bulky muscles underneath a tight T-shirt.
‘Con, you remember Keith,’ she said, ‘one of those posh English cunts you hate so much.’
Connor felt his hand squash under a firm handshake.
‘Hi, Keith. No offence with the English cunt thing. I came over a bit McGlashan back there, that’s all.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Never mind. I wasn’t referring to you, obviously.’
‘No offence taken,’ said Keith in a cut-glass English accent. ‘This uni is full of posh cunts. I hate them.’ He laughed a booming laugh. ‘I really enjoyed the gig. You guys are amazing. That’s the best bit of entertainment we’ve had here in years, if you don’t mind me saying.’
The Ossians Page 6